pyn quotes foucault?

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

Paul Mackin writes:

> Nice elaboration, Bill, of Leni's arguments from medical diagnosis
> and metaphor. But her proof, as you say, is only by analogy, and not
> by algebra as we know Franz would have preferred.  It's a mere
> metaphor itself. (Perhaps algebra is ALSO a metaphor, but that's
> another story.) Franz, the cold scientist, believes he is too
> LITERAL MINDED, too interested only in the OBJECT, to accept Leni's
> dreams. (now Franz's dreams are another matter)

No perhaps about it, Franz's algebra is also metaphor and that's the
point. Franz is not more literal-minded just better trained (I use the
word advisedly). Franz may well understand how to practice science but
that doesn't mean he has a better understanding than Leni or anyone
else of *why* it works (why does it work - answer well it worked last
time and all the times before, do you want to choose something which
didn't work last time?). And in fact his knowledge of science may lead
him to think he knows things that he doesn't.

> In the novel (at least in this scene), Leni wins. Franz is an
> unbelieving clod (not to say male chauvinist pig).  But in "real
> life" how many of us would want our bridges and parachutes designed
> by The Pynch, love him though we might?

But it's not a question of getting Leni to design bridges or
parachutes in place of Franz. This is philosophy, whose purpose is not
to stop people doing what they do perfectly well already but to stop
them misunderstanding the nature of what they do and conflating it
with or dissociating it from other activities because of their
confusion over this nature. Franz does not need an education in how to
do science. He needs an education in how to judge matters which are
outwith the purview of his science. In fact even more basic still he
needs to see that he is not armed to deal with these problems.

He is not a `male chauvinist pig' so much as a die-hard rationalist
who will not shift until the order to shift comes in language he can
understand. When Leni tries and fails to use his language to explain
what she means he dismisses her words because he has no conception of
what it is that is missing from his understanding of the world and
merely thinks that she knows even less than him. But note that he does
know something is wrong, drastically wrong with his own understanding.
His failure to reject the advances of Blicero et al is all the more
tragic because he knows it is not right but cannot see how to avoid
it. I know he also wants to dream, to build and play with his toys,
but neither does he understand how dangerous those toys are. Franz
does not make any bargain with the Devil, merely falling in with him
in the absence of any idea of what redemption might await him, what
redemption really means. Once he finally falls and understands his sin
his goodness shows through.  He is a deeply conscientious and moral
man in a unconscionably immoral world.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.